An ink-jet recording apparatus in which a liquid functional material that is curable by an active-energy ray such as an electron beam or a UV ray is ejected onto a recording medium with using an ink-jet head and the liquid functional material is cured by active-energy irradiation to form an image has features such as that it is environmentally friendly, and that it can obtain a high-resolution image which can be recorded at a high speed on various recording media, and which hardly bleeds. Particularly, development of an apparatus which uses a UV curable ink as a liquid functional material is advancing from the viewpoints of easy handling of a light source, compactness, and the like. Under these circumstances, by taking the advantage of the high-speed fixing property, a so-called single-pass ink-jet recording apparatus has been proposed in which a web-like recording medium that can be transported at a high speed is used, a head having a width that allows recording to be performed over the whole width of the recording medium is placed so as to be opposed to the recording medium in a state where the head is fixed, and recording is completed simply by causing the recording medium to pass under the head one time.
A single-pass ink-jet recording apparatus is disclosed in which, in the case where color printing is performed, stationary heads the number of which is equal to that of colors required for color reproduction are arranged in the direction of transporting a recording medium, and active-energy ray irradiating means are placed immediately downstream of the heads (for example, see JP-A-2004-314586).
Furthermore, an ink-jet recording apparatus is disclosed in which, in the case where cationic UV curable inks are used, a cold- or hot-cathode fluorescent tube that is relatively economical is employed (for example, see JP-A-2004-237602).
In these apparatuses, active-energy ray irradiating means are placed immediately downstream of all of the heads for respective colors, respectively. According to the configuration, inks are fixed to a certain degree. This is performed in order to suppress mixture of inks of different colors. In such an apparatus, deposition interference is suppressed from occurring, and the resolution is not reduced, thereby producing an advantage that a high-quality image can be always obtained on various recording media.